Samsung Galaxy A5 Review

Design and Management

The phone is available in black or “fishing”. Our glassy black model was a glass and unobtrusive black box (gallery here), but this will attract some people. It’s very slippery (unlike the Galaxy Note 7, which has a glass cover), and usually feels comfortable in the hand.

The Full HD screen of 5.2 inches is colorful and bright, as one would expect from a decent AMOLED device. The speakers provide decent and rich sound for conference calling, which results in low-end music with a modest performance. However, they are not very loud.

The Octacore processor makes everything run fast enough, we find it a bit too late and most applications open quickly, if not immediately, like the high-end phones.

We are pleased to see that the phone has IP68 protection, which is sealed against dust and water. Very few cell phones have these today, especially at this level. This means that the phone can withstand immersion for 30 minutes in 1.5 m of water. Remember that there are warnings of freshwater and saltwater, so you should follow your own interpretation of Samsung’s rules if you avoid invalidating the warranty. For what it is worth, we use it in a shower and steam room without problems.

One potentially useful feature is Samsung Pay, which allows you to save credit cards and store loyalty cards on the phone. But while we transport our supermarket rewards cards with no problems, the compatibility of credit cards is severely limited: Citi and AmEx (in Australia).

The only real complaint we had was the main button, which works like a fingerprint reader. It’s pretty close, but it was not reliable. He rarely recognized our fingers on the first try and we even blocked repeatedly for a full minute. This gets even more annoying when you get the excellent Samsung Knox security application that allows you to block files, applications and photos in a safe area, preventing others from seeing things they should not do. To be honest, at normal temperatures with dry fingers was a lot less annoying problem, but any kind of low humidity around the sensor from the unbearable consumption and could be boring.

Main disadvantages
Snapdragon 410 is better for cheaper midrange devices
It is relatively expensive for the hardware features that are offered
In the dual-SIM version you can not have a secondary SIM card or a microSD card inside.
The battery is not removable

Samsung Galaxy A5 2017 price and release date

Cheaper than a Galaxy S7, but it’s not cheap
Price similar to OnePlus 3T
In the upper part of “Mid-Range”
The Samsung Galaxy A5 shows how “mid-range phones” can be today. It costs $ 399 in the United States, £ 369 in the UK and $ 649 in Australia.

It’s a bit more expensive than the Galaxy A5’s 2016 version, but the phone comes with some major updates, such as water resistance.

The Galaxy A5 2017 was launched in January 2017, one year after the release of the Galaxy A5 2016. Like the Galaxy S series, the mid-range A phones appeared more reliably and reliably than the Galaxy A5 each year. middle train.

Find yourself in the middle class

Compact cameras with megapixels
Samsung Octa-core processor
32 GB memory with microSD extension
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Just look at the specifications of the Samsung Galaxy A5 and it looks like it has more features than Samsung’s flagship last year, the Galaxy S7.

It has more megapixels, with 16 tablets in the front and rear cameras and a new USB-C port. It’s also a classic example of what it’s worth to learn a bit more about the technology behind the numbers.

For example, the Samsung Galaxy A5 has a distinctive midrange chipset, the Samsung Exynos 7880. It’s pretty close to the Snapdragon 617 used in phones like the Moto G4 Plus, though the A5 is twice as expensive.

Review of Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017): Performance and autonomy

In terms of performance, the Galaxy A5’s impressions this year were solid. The Samsung Exynos 7880 Octa-Core with a clock speed of 1.9 GHz seems to be quite fast and the 3 GB of RAM that accompany it make Android full of energy.

A5 this year is behind the One Plus 3T in the reference points, receiving 767 in the single-core test Geekbench 4 and 4054 in the multi-core compared to 1,903 and 4,274. However, £ 60 is lower than holding in the third quarter I consider it a fair compromise.

The graphics performance of the phone is a little less impressive. When running the Manhattan 3.0 test on the GFXBench screen, the average refresh rate was 14 fps, 33 fps less than the annotated OnePlus 3T. Of course it was not that bad in practice. I discovered that Sky Force: Reloaded worked with a minimum of setbacks, even if there were many things on the screen, but you do not have to forget how the phone will not only work with the current games. but also started with those in two years. When you reach the end of your contract. Then things are not so bright.

Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) – Software

The weakness of Samsung has been a disappointing software experience for many years, mainly because of its intricate TouchWiz user interface. Fortunately, the company has made great improvements since the Galaxy S6, with the remnants of TouchWiz pretty good now. It is still far from the idea of ​​Android “standard”, but it is no longer a burden.

Since the A5 is Samsung’s first cell phone since the ephemeral Galaxy Note 7, it inherits many features of this phone’s software.

A cleaner, whiter user interface is the most noticeable change, but a sparse configuration menu and redesigned base applications are also welcome. Also available is the ridiculously convenient Safe Folder, a closed space where you can store passwords, documents and private photos.

My biggest criticism of the software is that the Galaxy A5 gets stuck in Android 6.0.1, instead of the nougat version, which is extended to the owners of the Galaxy S7.

Normally, I would challenge a phone to ship outdated software, but to be honest, many of the specific features of Nougat are already available here. Split-screen multitasking is included as well as DPI editing options. In addition, nougat should come to an update before the end of the first quarter.

Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) – Camera

Medium-range cell phones tend to fall due to their disappointing cameras, usually due to poor software and slow image processing. Fortunately, the Galaxy A5 generally avoids these pitfalls.

The 16 megapixel rear-view camera is reliable and records detailed photos with good color accuracy, without being confused with confused modes. The focus is fast and accurate, and the clean application makes the recording process painless.

The lack of OIS is a shame, especially since it adorned the model 2016, and there is no detection of phase autofocus, but it ignites in sunny conditions and you will be happy with results. There is a good shooting depth and the activation of the HDR mode makes it even more obvious.

The front camera is rear-facing for basic specifications, with a 16 megapixel sensor and 1: 1 aperture. There is no autofocus and the whole approach is surprisingly slow, but the selfies are super clean.

The video has a maximum of 1080p 30 fps, so there is no 4K record, and the results are a mix. Tremor is often due to the lack of OIS, and the sound seems particularly terrible, but it’s good for the basic needs.

Main conclusions of the test

Exceptional construction quality. We love the matte finish, but the Pearl White may be too feminine;
The screen is very good, with the expected big contrast, deep black and bright colors. The brightness is also high for an AMOLED panel;
Good battery life, highlighted by the excellent talk times. The regular Galaxy A5 offers 250 hours of standby, the Duos version 50 hours less, and is 5 hours less resistant, but still good;
The connectivity suite is pretty complete, only cable connection is missing; Non-LTE models also lack NFC;
TouchWiz provides one-hand, multi-window, useful operations, and is fast and fluid;
The performance of Snapdragon 410 is mediocre, not suitable for high-end games;
Speaker volume below average;
Good support for the video player codec; its only problems are the MKV format and patented audio codecs like AAC and AC3;
Excellent audio output quality;
The 13MP camera delivers sharp, crisp images with good color balance, but only a medium dynamic range;
The 5 megapixel front camera is nothing special, but it has a large enough angle to fit in the frame;
1080p videos are among the best we’ve ever seen, offering a high level of detail and fluidity.